


Quaalude

by Windybird



Category: Hannibal (TV), Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Attacks, Elliot Alderson Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Polyamory, Power Dynamics, Professor Will Graham, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, season 4's ending is not canon lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26221045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windybird/pseuds/Windybird
Summary: After the Deus Group's takedown, Dom arranges for Elliot to become a TA for a cybercrimes professor in Virginia. What he doesn't expect is to find himself transferred to criminal behavior professor Will Graham, whose relationship with their shared psychologist is both troubling and intriguing.Mostly troubling, though, or so Mr. Robot says.
Relationships: Elliot Alderson & Mr. Robot, Elliot Alderson/Hannibal Lecter, Elliot Alderson/Will Graham, Elliot Alderson/Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 26
Kudos: 22





	Quaalude

Darlene was so pissed with him when he told her, he was pretty sure that this was the last straw- this was the final fuck-up allotted to him, no takebacks or recantations. She would make good on her promise to never fucking talk to him again, _ever,_ and then he’d really be alone for good this time. Mr. Robot said she’d get over it the next day, and he was right, in the way he usually is when it comes to Darlene, but the fear that tinged their last interaction followed them all the way to Virginia.

He knows why she’s so upset. The sudden proximity between them makes him anxious, too, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. Dom said she’d look out for her, and he believes her, to a certain extent, but it wasn’t as soothing as she thought it would be. Mr. Robot says that she and Darlene are a pipe bomb, bound to explode any day now, and though Elliot doesn’t think Dom would take back her recommendation to the bureau if the worst happened and they broke up, he also knows that he’d head back to New York the second he’d heard, so whether the bureau took him in or not would be pointless anyway.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mutters. Mr. Robot looks unimpressed from his perch on the futon.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Elliot continues, “and you’re wrong. I’m not a sellout.”

Mr. Robot lets out an incredulous little huff.

“Could’ve fooled me. Working for the FBI?” He shakes his head, disbelieving, before hoisting himself up from his seat and coming to stand beside the one other piece of furniture Elliot’s set up in his apartment, a rickety old chair with an ominous red stain on its white-gone-beige cushion. He raps his knuckles smartly on Elliot’s temples. “Kiddo, if that’s not selling out, I don’t know what is. Especially after all the shit we just pulled- _especially_ since we don’t know if the FBI is still being puppeteered by the Dark Army!”

Elliot tenses a little, before shaking his head.

“Whiterose killed herself, and the Dark Army’s scrambled to the wind. Don’t you remember what Darlene said? We saved-“

“The world,” Mr. Robot finishes tiredly, as though he’s heard it a thousand times before. And maybe he has. After Elliot had woken up in the hospital, Darlene jerking upright in the chair beside him, he’d had ample time to run the same old circles into the ground. Darlene had filled him in on the week that he’d missed (and wasn’t it sad that it was the one week of his entire life that he could recall where he’d actually had a good night’s rest?) while he was recuperating, and it had been chock-full of the impossible.

The E-Corp data recovery had paved way for the restoration of the global economy, for one, and with Whiterose having blown her brains out beneath the power plant, the Dark Army wasn’t going to be much of a threat anymore. Oh, they were bound to have replacements in mind, as Mr. Robot helpfully pointed out, but it would take months- if not years- for them to convalesce from the blow Elliot had given them.

He had saved the world. Now, all there was to do was live in it.

Which proved to be harder than anticipated. Leon rolled by the day after he’d woken up, offering him the same opportunities he’d given Darlene- free-lance jobs, good pay, varying degrees of criminality-, and Dom had retaliated by offering him a job at the FBI Academy in Quantico, as a teacher’s assistant in cybercrimes. The irony was not lost on him.

He ended up doing both. Not at the same time, obviously- being a TA by day and vigilante hacker by night was a little too on-the-nose, even for him-, but he’d taken up a few of the jobs Leon had thrown his way. That, and combined with his portion of the money from the Deus Group that Darlene had all but forced upon him, he’d had enough money to pay for twelve months’ rent in Virginia, just a thirty-minute drive from Quantico.

“It’s not permanent,” Elliot says now, though Mr. Robot doesn’t look too impressed. “I mean it,” he adds, a little more insistently. “I don’t want to be here forever. I just want to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Mr. Robot retorts, though he’s softened his voice, hand coming to rest on Elliot’s shoulder. “We can just go back to New York, stay at Darlene’s if you don’t want to be alone in the apartment-“

Elliot’s already shaking his head before the words fully come out of Mr. Robot’s mouth.

“I’m not going to be a burden on Darlene anymore,” He says, slowly, forcefully. Mr. Robot rubs a hand across his face. 

“She gets anxious when you’re not around,” He retaliates, but his tone lacks heat.

Elliot’s won this round even before he parts his lips to say, “She gets anxious when I’m with her, too. Besides, she has Dom now. She’s good for her. I mean it,” He adds, when he sees the look on Mr. Robot’s face.

“Please,” he scoffs. “They’re not going to last more than a month.”

But that, too, lacks any heat. With a sigh, he takes a seat on the table beside Elliot’s chair.

“So we’re really going to do this, huh?” He asks quietly. “Work for the FBI until you figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life?”

“Do you have any better options?” Elliot shoots back. 

Mr. Robot opens his mouth as if to retaliate, before abruptly shaking his head.

“I do,” He says finally, “but you don’t want to listen to any of them.”

“I-“

“I’ll be on the backburner for a bit,” Mr. Robot interrupts. Whatever he sees on Elliot’s face must concern him, because his next few words are tripping out of his mouth almost clumsily in their haste. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I promised I wasn’t going to leave you- you think I’m going to turn my back on you now? I just… look, you take the reins for a while, and then we’ll talk. Okay?”

He's gone before Elliot can even begin to formulate a response.

Which means that, when he finally arrives at the Academy fifteen minutes before his first day, he is completely and utterly alone. Wherever Mr. Robot’s gone, it doesn’t seem like he’s coming back for a while, and though he should be pleased with the prospect of going through his first day without inadvertently insulting everybody in the room, as would undoubtedly be the case if Mr. Robot was in control, all he feels now is loss, and more than a little panic.

The FBI Academy reminds him of prison.

It’s grey and dour, and if he shuts his eyes, he can almost imagine that the frenzied pace of the students milling around him belong to the basketball players on the court. If he concentrates hard enough, he can almost hear Leon’s commentary on the new sitcom he’s taken up. Frasier. Not great, but not terrible, either, though he still thinks Seinfeld is the last word on coffee shop talks.

“You okay there, sir?”

Elliot jolts so hard his teeth chatter. When he opens his eyes, there’s a concerned-looking young woman watching him, clutching a binder in one hand and a coffee in the other. Her clothes are business-casual, black slacks and a fitted white button-up. Ambitious student, or precocious professor?

“Um…” His eyes dart around. A few students have begun to watch them. “I’m looking for Professor Graham’s classroom.”

The woman’s eyes light up.

“You’re in luck,” she says. “That’s my next class.”

She asks him a few questions on the way there, but when she realizes that she’s only going to get non-committal noises in response, they walk the rest of the way in an uncomfortable sort of silence. Thankfully, the walk only lasts a few minutes, and by the time they arrive inside the classroom, Elliot’s shoulders have (mostly) dropped their tension as the woman files past him to meet up with a few friends. 

Professor Graham is sitting at his desk, a glazed look in his eyes as he fixes his gaze somewhere in the distance. There are bags under his eyes- less noticeable than Elliot’s, but still clearly defined-, and his curly brown hair is slightly pressed on one side, an indentation from his pillow. He's clean-shaven, but there’s the barest impression of stubble along his jaw. Early-to-mid forties, glasses perched haphazardly on his nose, hastily-buttoned shirt, wrinkled slacks…

“Professor Graham?” Elliot asks, when it becomes apparent that he hasn’t acknowledged his presence. Professor Graham blinks, and then his eyes are meeting Elliot’s questioningly.

“Are you a student?” He asks, a little confusedly, and Elliot winces. He hadn’t even debated whether to leave the hoodie at home, though maybe he should’ve. There’s a button-up underneath- the same one he used when he was working at E Corp-, but not even the collar is visible to give him even the slightest bearing of a prospective TA. _Stupid, stupid…_

“I’m Elliot Alderson, your new TA,” He says, hating how his voice lilts up in a question when the look of confusion on Professor Graham’s face doesn’t dissipate. “You’re the cybercrimes professor, right?”

“What?” The word is tinged with bewildered amusement. “No. I teach criminal behavior.”

“There must’ve been a mix-up,” Elliot says slowly, trying to stave off dawning panic. “I’m supposed to be the TA for the cybercrimes professor, Will Graham. I don’t know anything about criminal behavior.”

_Well, that’s not entirely true_ , says a little voice in the back of his head. It sounds suspiciously like Mr. Robot, though when he glances around, he’s nowhere to be seen.

“And I don’t know anything about cybercrimes,” Professor Graham retorts lightly, though his eyebrows have furrowed as he watched Elliot look around. _Shit._ Was that suspicious of him? Does Graham suspect-?

As if overhearing Elliot’s thoughts, Professor Graham says, “Don’t worry about it for now. I’ll bring it up with the Department Head after class. For now, you can, uh, take a seat anywhere.”

“Okay.”

He takes a seat near the top row. His mind is buzzing so loudly, only bits and pieces of Professor Graham’s lecture is audible. Something about a Chesapeake Ripper, girls being hoisted on antlers, organs being harvested from their limp bodies…

He saw worse things working for Ray, but not by much. He tunes the noise out, focusing on the racing of his heartbeat inside his chest, fingers twitching on his knees as the sound of pencils on paper reverberate around him. At some point he remembers the Walkman Leon gave him as a goodbye present, and fumbles for the headphones. The blocking of sound is complete, and he feels himself relaxing, if only a little. He wonders how many people here could guess that he, at one point, had pwned their supposedly infallible FBI.

Mr. Robot’s voice, again. He sighs and allows his eyes to flutter shut, trying to concentrate on Leon's music, strange and echoing in his ears. When was the last time he'd listened to music, anyway? Or the last time he'd worn earbuds? Not since he lost his childhood Walkman- the one he'd found in Mom's sock drawer, the one Darlene had insisted he'd listened to with her, despite his protestations otherwise. But that Happy Mother's Day tape wasn't music. Not like this. _Vanity, overriding wisdom…_

“Mr. Alderson?”

The voice is loud above his earbuds, and he jerks them out quickly. It feels like mere seconds since he sat down, but the entire classroom is empty, save for him and Professor Graham, who’s looking up at him with concern that seems uncharacteristic. Elliot thinks that it’s typically others who worry about him, not him doing much of the worrying. Speculation, obviously, but still. He doesn’t have the look of a man who takes care of himself. Elliot knows. He sees it in the mirror every day.

Professor Graham seems flustered when Elliot’s eyes land on him. Rubbing the back of his neck, he says, “I took the, uh, liberty of speaking with the Department Chair while you were-“

He makes a vague gesture at him. _Too embarrassed to call me out for sleeping in class?_

“The cybercrimes professor apparently already has a TA,” He continues, looking just above Elliot’s eyes. “An undergraduate student. Agent DiPerro must’ve confused me with him, but since you’re already here…”

He sighs, and then shifts his gaze down to Elliot’s. He feels something spark in the back of his head as Professor Graham speaks.

“I’ve needed a TA for a while. I know you said you don’t know anything about criminal behavior, but I won’t be assigning you any teaching duties. If you choose to stay, that is.”

“If I choose to stay?” Elliot repeats. Professor Graham barks out an uncomfortable laugh.

“You have the freedom of choice. Nobody’s going to force you to do something you don’t want to do,” He says. This time, it’s Elliot who has to stifle the anxious, inappropriate little laugh bubbling in the back of his throat. The idea that he has any freedom of choice whatsoever is completely foreign to him.

_But he’s right, isn’t he?_ says the little voice in the back of his head. _Dark Army’s done- for the time being, anyway. The economy’s repairing. You saved the world, didn’t you? Wasn’t the point in coming here to live in it?_

“I’ll stay,” comes out of his mouth before he’s aware he’s even speaking. Professor Graham’s lips twitch upwards, in the barest suggestion of a smile.

“Okay. I’ll send you an email with the week’s schedule on it. I’ll put you on grading duties for the quiz this week?” It’s asked, not told. Elliot manages a slight nod, and Professor Graham gives him a tight-lipped smile before heading out the door.

Elliot waits five minutes in the dark of the classroom before following him out.

* * *

It goes without saying that Hannibal Lecter is nothing like Krista.

It’s not that the two of them are the exact opposite of each other, though it’s pretty damn close. Where Krista is almost maternal in her concern for Elliot, Doctor Lecter is as closed a book as you can get. There’s nothing Elliot can see behind his maroon eyes- no judgement, true, but also no light whatsoever. He’s shaken the moment Doctor Lecter opens his door with a genial, “Please, come in.”

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Elliot,” Doctor Lecter says now, his eyes never leaving Elliot’s face. “Krista spoke about you with much fondness during our last conversation.”

Elliot says nothing. That doesn’t seem to deter Doctor Lecter.

“It seems you had made a breakthrough during your last session,” He continues. _That_ causes a reaction, all right- Elliot tenses so quickly, he can almost feel the bones in his shoulders reverberating as they come up to his ears. Doctor Lecter watches him with a detached sort of interest.

“Don’t worry,” he tells him, voice not soothing so much as it is matter-of-fact. That, perversely, comforts Elliot more so than if he had that maternal- rather, paternal- note in his voice he’d been waiting for. “Krista is bound, as I am, by doctor-patient confidentiality. She didn’t tell me anything, but I’m curious. Would my knowing about the nature of your breakthrough be so bad?”

“Yes,” comes ripping out of Elliot’s throat, almost primitive in its savage assurance, and he winces. Not a good start. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”

Doctor Lecter shifts a little in his seat, his hands steepled together in such an archetypal psychologist way that it almost makes Elliot laugh.

“And why has it been a long day?” Doctor Lecter prompts, when it becomes clear Elliot isn’t going to offer any additional information. Elliot glances up at him, but again, his eyes betray nothing. He makes a mental note to check Doctor Lecter’s social media accounts later tonight as he speaks.

“I moved here,” he says slowly, “to become a TA for the cybercrimes professor at the FBI Academy. But when I came, they must’ve got the professors confused, because I ended up in the criminal division. Not cybercrime.”

“Is cybercrime a particular passion of yours?” Doctor Lecter asks. Elliot bites the inside of his cheek to avoid smiling.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I guess you could say that. But it’s fine. Professor Graham says he won’t assign me too much work with the students themselves, anyway.”

And if Doctor Lecter’s eyes revealed too little before, now even the slightest bit of light has suddenly darkened at the mention of Professor Graham’s name. His face remains impassive, but Elliot’s seen the change of light. He knows him, and he doesn’t want to reveal himself. Weird.

“Do you anticipate you’ll have much trouble in your duties as a TA? What did you do before?”

_Oh, you remember Fsociety? And the Five/Nine attacks? And the Deus Group reveal that redistributed the wealth of the top one percent of the top one percent back to the people? Yeah, that was all me. Well, me and Mr. Robot, who's still technically me, just another version of me that acts independently of what I want, most of the time. Thanks for asking._

“I was a cybersecurity engineer at Allsafe,” Elliot says shortly, above the sudden, loud clamor inside his head. “After that, I did some freelance work for a while. And then I ended up here.”

“And how are you acclimating to Virginia, Elliot?” Doctor Lecter asks smoothly, but something’s changed in him, since Elliot mentioned Professor Graham. It’d be a farce to say that he didn’t seem engaged before, because he had, albeit almost clinical in his politeness. Now, though… he's leaning forward, legs crossed, and Elliot isn’t sure if it’s because he’s purposefully allowing his body language to give him away or not. He has to be aware of it, too- is he gauging whether Elliot is as well? “It must be different from living in New York, surely.”

“It is,” He says, slowly. Watching Doctor Lecter closely- watching him watching Elliot. “It feels too quiet. You can’t hear the traffic outside your apartment, here.”

“Most people who come to Virginia seem to enjoy the change of pace,” Doctor Lecter remarks, leaning back in his chair. “I take it you’ve lived in New York your entire life, then?”

“I lived in New Jersey, actually,” Elliot corrects, a little too sharply. Making an effort to soften his voice, he adds, “I lived in Washington Township until my dad died. Then my mom sold the house and moved to New York when Darlene and I were still kids.”

“Darlene is your sister?” Doctor Lecter asks politely. Elliot’s head jerks into a nod.

“Four years younger than me,” He says. “Her girlfriend actually helped me get the job here. She’s an FBI agent.”

They talk about Darlene and Dom for a while. Mr. Robot isn’t here, but it doesn’t stop his snarky commentary of pipe bomb explosions from running in Elliot’s mind as they speak. Doctor Lecter seems to pick up on his discomfort, though, because he deftly changes the subject to the present- namely, what Elliot did after he got home from the Academy.

The inside of his cheek is going to develop an indentation from how hard he’s biting it. He doesn’t think Doctor Lecter would be too receptive to him telling him what he actually did when he got back home from the Academy, which was to hack Professor Graham’s social media accounts. It’s as sparse as an eighty-year-old grandmother’s, except an eighty-year-old grandmother might’ve actually posted something once a year. The two photos on Professor Graham’s Facebook- one of him with an uncomfortable smile on his face, the arm slung across his shoulder belonging to a young, pretty Asian woman, and another, low-res one of him brushing a German Shepard- all look like they’ve been posted for him by somebody else. The woman in the first photo, maybe.

He doesn’t say any of that, though. Instead he says, “I watched TV until it was time for my appointment.”

There. A totally normal response. Whether Doctor Lecter’s convinced by it is another story, but it doesn’t matter- their hour is up, anyway. They schedule a meeting for Friday next week, one Elliot is debating on skipping even as he steps out the door.

And almost runs directly into Professor Graham.

“Professor Graham,” He blurts out, eyes widening as he takes him in, standing there still as stone. When Professor Graham doesn’t say anything, he cautions, “It’s Elliot. From the Academy.”

“What are you doing here?” Professor Graham asks, looking as off-kilter as Elliot feels. He glances pointedly at the door behind him, and then back at Professor Graham.

“Of course,” Professor Graham says, and the creases in his face are suddenly pronounced as he looks at Elliot. “Sorry. I just- I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“I was referred to Doctor Lecter by my old therapist,” Elliot says, awkwardly shifting his weight on his legs. They stand in uncomfortable silence for a moment, until the door suddenly creaks open behind them and Doctor Lecter comes into view.

“Will,” He says, voice composed even as his eyes dart between the two of them. “I wasn’t expecting you so early.”

“Is that a prob-“

“Please,” says Hannibal, a small, private smile playing on his lips. “Come in.”

But Professor Graham doesn’t move, his gaze still locked on Elliot. Another tense beat, and then-

“I’ll see you in class,” Elliot mutters, quickly moving past him.

He looks up everything he can find on Doctor Lecter that night. It isn't much. A LinkedIn, a Facebook- one that's even more minimalistic than Professor Graham's-, and that's it. It's like he never existed before he turned forty-nine. Who knows, maybe he hasn't. He seems like the type of man to have emerged from his mother's womb fully grown, complete in a three-piece suit and expensive Italian shoes.

"I don't like it," Mr. Robot grumbles from behind him, and Elliot whirls around. He's sitting on the kitchen table, exactly where Elliot had left him this morning.

"Where have you been?" He demands, setting his laptop down on the futon before standing directly in front of him, arms crossed. "You were gone all day."

"I was recuperating, let's call it," is Mr. Robot's quick retort. There's a little furrow between his brows, though, when Elliot looks at him. "Though I suppose compartmentalizing would be a better term. Lots of things to mull over today, kiddo. Most of them bad. Actually, all of them bad."

"Bad?" Elliot repeats, a little incredulously, and Mr. Robot heaves a sigh, as though he's being purposefully obtuse.

"Yeah. I don't know, Elliot. Being here is giving me a weird feeling. I mean, did you see how Doctor Lecter reacted when you mentioned Professor Graham's name?" Mr. Robot shakes his head, as though trying to dislodge the thoughts from his skull. "I don't like it," he repeats. "We were supposed to be working in cybercrimes, not criminal behavior. And the kind of criminal behavior you're acquainted with is wholly in the realm of cybercrimes, in case you've forgotten."

Elliot scowls. 

"It doesn't matter. We're here now, aren't we? Professor Graham told us we wouldn't have to do much work with the students- or even the course material-"

"Elliot, I'm telling you, we should leave," Mr. Robot says, no trace of humor left in his voice. "There's something fishy going on here. I mean, how is it possible that two grown men barely have five pictures online between them?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Elliot says in frustration, gesturing towards his laptop. "Can I get back to doing that now?"

Mr. Robot huffs a little, but he remains a quiet presence over Elliot's shoulder as he works. Nothing. He hacks both of their accounts, trying to see if there are any drafts that never made it out into the public eye, any photos uploaded and then banished to their archives- but nope. Nothing. There's no help for it; he'll just have to see what's on Professor Graham's computer tomorrow. If he's lucky, he'll find the same opportunity with Doctor Lecter, but he finds himself surprisingly reticent at the thought of breaking into Hannibal's office. Into his computer.

"If we're lucky, it'll just be evidence of embezzlement funds from his old place of work," Mr. Robot mutters, though he sounds unconvinced even as he speaks. "But when have we ever been the lucky sort?"

"You can talk to him tomorrow," Elliot says, decisively. Mr. Robot's eyes widen a little. 

"Are you su-"

"You'll get more information out of him that way," He says, before he can act on his first, immediate urge to rescind the offer. "And you can see, firsthand, how wrong you are. This is the most normal situation we've been in for the past two years." 

Mr. Robot snorts derisively at that.

"That isn't saying much," he says. "We can find proof that either one or both of them murdered their family in their beds, and it'll still be 'normal' compared to what we've just been through."

Elliot says nothing at that, and Mr. Robot heaves another long-suffering sigh.

"Don't forget to call Darlene."

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this mostly to make up for the lack of mr. robot/hannibal crossover fics i'm seeing in the tags, but also bc i apparently have a spot spot for protagonists with crippling depression and/or anxiety. also, to reiterate- the whole "mastermind identity" thing brought up in season 4's finale is a total farce and one that actually made me cry from the sheer betrayal and frustration i felt at sam emsail's contrived ending to a show i've been watching on and off since i was in middle school, so that doesn't exist here. elliot's only alter is mr. robot, and this all takes place after he woke up in the hospital, dream sequence thoroughly averted. hope that clarifies some things!


End file.
